Thursday, January 31, 2008

Tropical Forest Conservation Act and Ecological debt


Appeared in The Island, Colombo http://www.island.lk October 01, 2003

By Hemantha Withanage
Environmental Scientist

The Sri Lankan government is planning to sign an agreement, under the US Tropical Forestry Conservation act, to bind Sri Lanka's forests for external debt, soon. Under this arrangement those forests will in future be managed by a committee comprising representatives from the US government, International NGOs other than local representatives. Would this be a question of sovereignty too?

Like any other developing country, Sri Lanka receives loans and grants from both multilateral and bilateral agencies, such as the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the IMF, USAID and the JBIC. Nevertheless, Sri Lanka’s foreign debt continues to increase.

FULL STORY

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